


Buzzcut Season

by matadora



Category: Luther (TV), Suburban Shootout, Wallander (UK TV), Wallander Series - Henning Mankell
Genre: Alternate Universe, Canon Crossover, Crossover, Crossover Pairings, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, F/M, Gen, Multiple Crossovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-19
Updated: 2014-01-19
Packaged: 2018-01-09 06:59:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,713
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1142922
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/matadora/pseuds/matadora
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>And I'll never go home again (place the call, feel it start)</em>
  <br/>
  <em>Favorite friend (and nothing's wrong when nothing's true)</em>
  <br/>
  <em>I live in a hologram with you</em>
  <br/>
  <em>We're all the things that we do for fun (and I'll breathe, and it goes)</em>
  <br/>
  <em>Play along (make-believe it's hyper real)</em>
  <br/>
  <em>But I live in a hologram with you</em>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Buzzcut Season

**Author's Note:**

  * For [regents](https://archiveofourown.org/users/regents/gifts).



> • Who also beta’d this thing ahahahaha ty, bro. ♥  
> • This started with the amusing fact that in _Suburban Shootout_ Tom Hiddleston played the naive son of a policeman and Ruth Wilson played the bored daughter of a criminal-equivalent. Years later, Tom Hiddleston goes on to play a detective inspector in _Wallander_ and Ruth Wilson becomes a most wanted criminal in _Luther_.  
>  • Blanket warning for possible out-of-character writing.  
> • I’m primarily a _Wallander_ fan so I feel compelled to note that this is kind of a mixture of the BBC series and the books.  
>  • Title and summary are from Lorde’s _[Buzzcut Season](https://open.spotify.com/track/0i7Hh51R5z3Y32tJPFV54V)_ from the album _[Pure Heroine](https://open.spotify.com/album/5NrFMOprmnMEf4gMnLaHcq)_.

“ _Are you having pizza again?_ ”

Martinsson knew he could never lie to his wife. He could miss her for a whole week, put on his best police voice and she would still know that something was up. Wives, he thought. What was Man thinking by creating them?

Still, he said, “No,” and left it there.

His wife would not be dissuaded although she understood the language of her husband when he was being curt to _her_ of all people. “ _Magnus, I worry about you. I didn’t see you come home last night and when I wake up, you’re walking out the door again. When I look out, the last thing I see is your car driving out of the garage. You didn’t even take your lunch with you._ ”

“We’re,” Magnus sighed, dipping his head and massaging his forehead, eyes closed, his phone still attached to his ear. “There’s something… that’s going on right now and this could be it.”

“ _You always say that._ ”

“Well what the hell else am I supposed to say?” he demanded, dropping his hand, “This is the only thing I’ve got going now, the closest thing to a damn solution!” Immediately after that exclamation, though, Magnus felt bad. A heartbeat later, he said, “I’m sorry. It, it… it’s just been a very stressful couple of weeks for me...”

“ _I know,_ ” she said. After a pregnant pause, she added, “ _I worry about you._ ”

“I know,” Magnus mumbled, the taste of guilt like a bitter drip curdling his tongue. “I’m sorry. I miss you, too.” That was what that pause meant, he knew. And it was a truth they could only reveal to each other. “Don’t worry. When this is over, we’ll take a day off and drive to the beach. Okay?”

“ _Okay._ ”

“I love you.”

She said the same, hesitated, then hung up.

Magnus cut the call soon after and put his phone down to the table. Hands free, he sighed, hid his face in them and gave it a good rub while he yawned. Covered up like that, he couldn’t stop his eyes from closing and soon he had forgotten where he was, what he was doing as his muscles started to relax and the acoustic of the place slowly faded. The distant clangs of pans, the murmurs of quiet conversation, the door opening and shutting after a cheery welcome… the lazy music of a pizzeria in Ystad in the early afternoon.

The ringing of his phone shocked him out from his brief nap like an electrical zap and after affirming to himself that he knew where he was, he sighed, picked up his phone to answer until he saw the strange number printed on the screen. His brows curled. Magnus generally had a very good memory when it came to his contacts and he made sure he saved them all as soon as he got them so this new number was definitely curious. But he answered it still, and placed the phone against his ear. “Martinsson,” he said cautiously.

“ _Do you know what the name Magnus means?_ ” It was a woman, with just the hint of a drawl in her voice, almost concealed by a delighted lilt. Magnus’ mouth fell open; in an instant, he was alert. He knew that voice from memory and he had very good recall when it came to people. That she spoke English with a perfect accent made things easier for him but he could not bring himself to believe his ears. “ _It means ‘great’ in Latin. It wasn’t very popular among the Romans who first used it unless you’re talking about Magnus the Usurper but it gained popularity towards the Middle Ages, when it was introduced to the Catholics._ ”

“I didn’t sign up for a history lesson,” Magnus half-grumbled in the same language, shifting in his seat when he heard the slow tap of heels approaching from the back and he looked.

At the woman, dressed in a short black coat, belted snug around her, matched by a charcoal pencil skirt and high black boots. She had a dark beret over her long wavy hair which was the product of synthetic red but change her appearance as she might, her smile and her lips was all Magnus needed to know who he was facing.

“Then what am I doing here?” she asked, her grin seeming to grow with every syllable. She cut the call and slipped her phone in her pocket, then made herself welcome to the couch facing Magnus’ without further talk.

Magnus let her, following her with round eyes and parted lips, staring and staring. Only when she removed the tray of condiments blocking her view from the police officer did he speak to say, “Jewe--”

“Ah,” she lifted a finger to silence him, the smile permanent. “Rule number 1 of the name game: play it right. You’re Detective Inspector Magnus Martinsson of the Ystad Police Force.” She shifted a bit while she tilted her head up a bit placed her joint fist on the table. “I am Dr. Alice Morgan.”

“No occupation?”

“Widow,” she stated happily.

Magnus sighed at that information and brought his head down to carry the top of it by his right. “This is all going too fast for me.”

“You were never one for the fast life,” Alice said. “Sleepy towns, tiny provinces. Married life.”

Magnus removed his hand to look at her smiling face.

Alice inhaled as she leaned forward and propped her chin up on the weave of her gloved fingers. “Who’s the lucky girl?”

“Is intrusiveness the second rule of your name game?”

“Not even to an old sweetheart?”

“Not to someone who prefers to hide her name behind a stranger,” Magnus proceeded stubbornly, still reading into Alice’s appearance and vocabulary. _Wealthy tourist_ was the first conclusion anyone would have given her but years in his job has taught Magnus to doubt the innocence of a simple pair of gloves. She might, of course, just be showing off, like a celebrity on a personal vacation but there was just something about Alice’s aura -- the calculated softness of her voice, the deliberate pacing of her words and syllables -- that told him that the gloves served her a higher purpose, something she, too, knew from all their years apart. “So who is Alice Morgan?” he asked with a touch of coldness and a load of graveness in his voice. “Is she a dead body? Identity theft is easy as long as you know the right keywords in a search engine.”

“Do you want to see my license?” Alice humored him with a generous smile. “I’ll tell you who Alice Morgan is if you tell me who Magnus Martinsson is.”

“I have a badge to prove who I am.”

“Why the name change?” she proceeded relentlessly. “Finally got sick of your daft family in Little Stempington? Although I’m surprised you’d actually follow after the footsteps of your dad.”

“That’s a loaded accusation.”

Alice gasped, glee practically coloring her face as she moved back, straightening up. Magnus’ face remained impassive. “My, my, you _have_ changed! And here I thought I was just dreaming.”

“I could say the same to you.”

“Do you still dream about me?”

“I stopped when I left Africa.”

Change as she might, Magnus thought she would never be able to drop that throaty laugh, the one that came through a tight smile. “Mm hm hm.” The smell of fresh pepperoni pizza accompanied the approach of footsteps and he slipped his phone out of the table, into his pocket to make room for its plate and his can of coke. He thanked the waitress in Swedish.

The waitress straightened up and looked at Alice with confusion. “Mmm…”

“Umm,” Magnus cleared his throat, propping his elbows at the edge of the desk again. “Do you want anything?” he asked Morgan in English.

Alice’s smile stretched and she looked up to the waitress. “A cup of coffee, please,” she said in Swedish.

Magnus never knew that she could understand Swedish but at this point of the conversation, it didn’t seem to surprise him anymore. After the waitress went away, he took his slice of pizza and bit into it.

“Mm, hungry, hungry,” Alice chuckled as Magnus pulled. “Doesn’t your wife feed you enough?”

“Keep my wife out of this.” Magnus sucked the oil off his thumb.

“Why the crabby welcome to an old love, dearie?”

Magnus’ first response was to stare at Alice, this time under furrowed brows with a frown set upon his lips. He tried to find traces of his old friend where there was expensive make-up and hair coloring but all he saw was a woman whose very existence and _raison d’etre_ dwelled in the idea of pleasure. On what? Playing the fool to play _him_ for a fool? How childish. He felt a line of acid down his chest.

Silence not enough, he leaned closer to her to whisper, “Because you’re dead. I saw it in the news, I saw your obituary and your grave.”

“Here lies dear Jewel Diamond,” Alice recited, seemingly from memory. “Loving daughter and mother, at long last free and boundless.”

“You were never a mother.”

“Oh, I wanted to be,” Alice said, raising her brows to prove her point, lips pursed slightly. “You know that.”

“I thought I did,” Magnus’ voice hardened. “But don’t think I don’t know a damn thing about what you were doing in the bathroom, replacing your prenatal medication with mifepristone and misoprostol. You cried after you lost the baby but you never wanted it.”

“You used to be a fool for me.”

“I used to be a fool for anything,” Magnus proceeded in his quiet voice. “Until I learned the hard way that ignorance isn’t bliss, it’s _hell_.”

Alice still had her smile on but it was somehow softer than when they greeted each other, and Magnus wondered which he was looking at this time: Jewel or Alice… or someone else entirely. He’d never seen that face before and yet it touched him with fond familiarity, something that had been dashed from him in his years as a police officer. “My poor heart,” she said, “What has Africa ever done to you, love?”

The waitress arrived with Alice’s coffee, and Alice smiled at her and thanked her sweetly. She stirred once when she left, and sipped it straight. Putting it down in its plate, she looked at Magnus again eating his pizza slice. “I thought you were in Ghana.”

“I left.”

“So they told me.” When Magnus looked at Alice again, she only smiled wider. “I went looking.”

Magnus chewed his food down in silence. “I moved to Mozambique. Then South Africa.” He popped his can open and filled his iced glass with the dark liquid. “Soweto.”

“What’s gotten you interested there?”

“The drugs,” Magnus said, putting his can down to look at Alice, again. “You’d understand. That seems more like your thing.”

“You’re catching up faster than I predicted,” Alice said. “How did you know that was all me?”

“Because you’re here,” Magnus went on patiently, not for want of virtue but to state a point as if to a child, “Dressed as Alice Morgan. While someone who _might_ be the _real_ Alice Morgan lies in your grave, in an urn.” A solid pause. “After you burnt her and the rest of your mother’s stash in the opium den five miles off town. It’s all so clear now.” Images of the article, videos of the news, mug shots of an old friend flashed in his mind and when he got going, he couldn’t stop. He couldn’t believe it, how could he not have guessed that that was how it all happened? Criminals don’t start being criminals on a whim when they woke up; it took time, to grow, for the repression to build up.

He wondered if he should be scared of the person who sat before him… and why he wasn’t.

“After years of trying, you finally become the talk of the town,” he went on, all was well, “You punish your mother for the hell she put you through keeping you in that dull pigeonhole while you escape it all scot-free. And now here you are.”

“Free and boundless,” Alice smiled victoriously. “I wrote that, you know?”

“I’m no longer surprised.” Neither did he look impressed.

Alice gave her throaty laugh again. “So what about the drugs?”

Magnus was drinking from his glass when she asked, and he couldn’t deny that he had to wonder whether or not he wanted to answer it for all that Alice was turning out to be. He wanted to refuse, for the sake of scorn -- but a past relationship held better sway of him, and lie to himself as he might, he knew he couldn’t refuse it. It was a curse...on the one side but on the other, it was also him. It was what made him him and Alice her and suddenly, he held onto that knowledge like a lifeline. Putting down his soft drink, he said, “The syndicates. The network, the pushers… ultimately, it was the victims that got me.”

“How?”

“You see them every day of your life, and it will affect you and the way you look at things,” Magnus confessed, quietly but openly. “It started when I was much younger, before I got to Little Stempington. It tires you and drains you… I said I needed to escape it so I flew back to England, moved in with Mum and Dad. I didn’t want to think, I didn’t want to botch my second chance for a life.”

“Doesn’t explain why you smoked cocaine.”

“I wanted to see the effects,” Magnus said. “ _Truly. See._ ”

Alice only kept smiling. She was still listening.

Magnus sighed and looked down. “I never escaped Africa,” his words were slippery in the face of an old friend, “After you aborted the baby, I flew back to Ghana because I was upset. After I saw what the syndicates were doing, I knew I wanted to put a stop to it. In Soweto, I met a police officer who was based in Trollhattan but flew out to South Africa for an investigation. We became friends, I tried to help him. Soon my name was getting some… unwanted publicity among the wrong crowd and I asked him for help. He never got to the bottom of his assignment but he decided to take me back with him to Sweden to save me. He worked the papers, the people… he said I could be a good police officer if I put my mind to it. I was tired of Africa and sick of being clueless all the damn time. So I agreed. And then I moved to Ystad.”

“And now here you are,” Alice said. “I seem to be attracted to police officers this late.”

Magnus curled his brows.

Before he could ask, though, Alice stood up, and stepped towards him to offer her hand. Magnus took it with little thought, and they shook. “It was a lovely lunch, Magnus.”

“Are you going back?” Magnus asked, a little surprised by the abrupt ending of their conversation but he didn’t dwell in it.

“Mm, no,” Alice looked around, “I thought I’d go around, do some touring while I’m here. Do you have any suggestions?” She turned to Magnus again.

Magnus had to pause to think. Ystad was so small, there was hardly anything there. When he first moved there, he didn’t even spend two months getting to know the whole place. “You could try the Animal Park,” he said.

“Mm, animals,” Alice mused. Then she walked.

But Magnus was fast and he caught her arm before she could completely leave. Her feet obeyed, and she looked back to him with quiet interest.

“Just one more question,” Magnus said. “Why the abortion?”

“Why the baby?” Alice asked back, shrugged. “What for?”

“What do you _mean_ what for?”

“Shhh,” Alice said, stepping back to press a finger against his lips. “All in good time, Inspector. Don’t get too riled up by the past.” She winked at him.

Then stood and left.

⋆⋆⋆

That was a strange afternoon in an otherwise normal day. Magnus went back to work after and had a meeting which was cut short so he managed to go home at an early time and make dinner with his wife. Somehow, seeing Alice again after so many years had put him in… an odd mood. It wasn’t a resurfaced guilt or an embarrassment of who he was… but somehow, he couldn’t keep his hands from his wife, embracing her and kissing her from the back, keeping the bathroom door open so that she joined him in the shower…

She noted it all while they laid in bed, covered only by their quilt, pressed close to each other, preparing to sleep finally…

“Whatever happened this day, I hope it keeps happening,” she sighed to the pit of his arm happily, taking in his scent. “At least until tomorrow… I want to have dinner with my husband, again.”

“I wouldn’t count on that,” Magnus chuckled, looking at his sleepy wife’s face, smiling. Shifting to lay on his side, he pulled her close to place a kiss on her damp hair. “But I’ll try to make it to dinner tomorrow, okay?”

“You’ll try,” his wife sighed again, snuggling close to him, eyes closed. “I hope someone comes and solves your case already.”

“Me, too,” Magnus said, smiling lazily. He waited until she was sound asleep before he, too, slept.

⋆⋆⋆

His morning started in much the same way, an early start in the office with a slice of toast hanging off his lips while he typed an email, or a cup of coffee constantly connected to his mouth, he might as well have caffeine injected to his very system. He had a meeting that took an hour, paid the forensics laboratory a visit then drove to the ferry port for a quick look around. He was back in the office before the morning ended to make more calls and send more emails when his phone rang and interrupted his rhythm; he cut back a curse.

He answered it, pinned in between ear and shoulder, with his customary, “Martinsson.”

It was Ebba the receptionist. “Someone here to see you, she says she’s a friend from home?”

Magnus could hardly believe what he heard.

But true enough, when he came out to the lobby of the station, wide, clean, empty save for four people including him, Alice was there, dressed this time in a dark blue jacket, a green dress, and her boots from the last day. She had no beret to cover her lush red hair, and when she waved her gloved right, she mouthed, _Hello, Magnus._ She might as well have told him, _Remember the name game._

Magnus sighed, made an effort not to throw his head back before he turned to Ebba and nodded. “I’ll take it from here,” he said in their shared language. “Is Kurt back yet?”

“Nope,” Ebba said, smiling at Alice when she stood up and started towards Magnus. “I’ll call you when he gets back.”

“Thanks,” he said and led Alice to his office.

“You know, for a bunch of police officers,” Alice began as Magnus closed the door behind them, “It makes me wonder how your friends never realise why you’re so good at English.”

“That’s not necessary with the work at hand,” Magnus sighed, sitting in his chair and pulling himself closer to his desk so he could put his arms on it as he always did. “And I’ve got a lot on my plate right now. So what is it? I can give you fifteen minutes before I have to run to the hospital.”

“Is it Mrs. Ahlstrom?”

Magnus gaped, stared. “Wh-- how did--”

“I asked around,” Alice said matter-of-factly, even shrugged. “Your friend was very helpful.”

That was enough to tell Magnus who she meant and he groaned, leaning towards his rising hands to say into it, “ _Hansson._ ” This was not how he planned for this conversation to start.

“Oh, please don’t be mad at him,” Alice said. “I rather like him. He was very happy to point me to my ailing grandmother.”

“You--” Magnus felt deafened when he looked up to stare at her again. “You _pretended_ to be her relation?!”

“Well, I had to get some answers.”

“With what?!”

“Her assailant,” Alice went on, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. “Where she was keeping him and why he attacked her. You know, you should really hire more female police officers--”

“What you did,” Magnus snarled, “Was against protocol!”

“Are you interested with her answers?” For the first time since he and Alice had met again, her voice took on a sharp timber and her lips were set in something closer to a frown. It was a look that was enough to quell some of Magnus’ rage and disbelief, confuse him. Thinking back, this was also the first time she ever looked that way at him. “Or am I going to walk out of here and look for another police officer because my old friend refuses to accept my help?”

“I wasn’t--” Magnus sighed, head bowed to be carried by his right as always. Things were starting to go out of control and he didn’t know where to start collecting the herd. A small voice in him wondered if it had always been this way with the woman. After a pause he said, “I wasn’t asking for your help and what you did could have put the entire force in question!”

“Thank goodness I’m not a police officer, am I?”

“You’re not,” Magnus said, looking at her with a frown on his own face. “So why are you doing this? Why did you do this?”

Alice didn’t answer that. Instead, she looked at one of the photo frames on Magnus’ desk and she turned it carefully towards her. “Is this your wife?”

It was. But Magnus responded only by taking the frame from her and turning it again to face him.

“She’s beautiful,” Alice said, smiling again. “She has lovely eyes. I bet you like it when she looks at you like that.”

Magnus said nothing again, only looked at Alice, unimpressed as always. It was useless fighting her, he realized. She was determined to see this through and it was obvious she played her cards right. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know the rest of the story… but in silence, he waited for her to go on, too proud to invite her with so much as a sound and knowing she would catch on easily, anyway.

Alice showed some teeth finally. “The assailant is a friend.”

“Impossible,” Magnus said with a weary laugh, putting his hand on his eyes, again. “She’s had no previous encounter with him, not in her old work, not in her hobby clubs.”

“Not with him,” Alice agreed. “But his wife, yes.”

“What?” Magnus spat, brows curled, and instantly launched himself into his computer to double check her claims.

“She and his wife used to be close until his wife died and Ahlstrom was left to live in guilt. So when her assailant came to her asking for help, she decided to keep him from the police until they disagreed and he attacked her and escaped.” Alice was proud of her report, enjoying the look on Magnus’ face -- wide eyes, half agape -- as he read his screen. “I’m sure you’ll know how to go from here.”

“How did you know all that?”

“I was her granddaughter.”

“Her granddaughter is in America and she’s much older than you. We’ve talked to her over the phone and she hasn’t been in contact with Ahlstrom for _years_. Since she got married at the age of 21, to be precise, at around which time she and Ahlstrom steadily drew apart.”

“Well, obviously I wasn’t _that_ granddaughter,” Alice relaxed in her seat. “I was the _old_ granddaughter, the one she missed.”

“You--” Magnus looked at Alice again with shock in his face, surprised to feel his heart beating low. “You _played_ with her?”

“Is it playing when I made Ahlstrom happy even for a short while?”

“You _played_ with a senile old woman waiting to die in a hospital!” Magnus almost roared, bolstered out of his seat in disbelief. “How could you have done that?!”

“What?” Alice asked, looking up to him with the pure look of innocence. “As if I meant her harm? You did say so yourself, she was waiting to die so why not make the last of her days worth it?”

“That doesn’t give you any damn right to just come trudging into her life and pretending you were something she would never have!” Magnus cried, gesticulating. “Just imagine the effects this would have on her! She may be okay now but in time, she’s going to look for you and if no one can provide you her then she will become desperate and her condition could get worse! And what if the doctors diagnose her incorrectly because he thought she was becoming delusional?”

“Or, what if she simply forgets all of this? She’s on morphine, you know?”

“It’s not,” Magnus shook his head, hands on his sides as he paced briefly from one end of his desk to the next, ill at ease with the revelations, “That easy. It’s not that simple. I’ve seen more senile old women than I care to admit in this job and it doesn’t work like that!”

“And you think I haven’t seen my share?” Alice was pure wonder and amusement, meeting that glare with a doe-eyed look, frown with a smile. “You’re talking to a doctor, remember?”

“I’m talking to a failed actress who staged her own death and incarcerated her own mother for the pure hell of it!”

“Doesn’t make me any less a genius.” Alice smiled. Then she rose to her feet and stepped towards the desk that parted her from her childhood sweetheart, leaning towards his stoic form as if to catch a whiff of his cologne. But she raised her right hand to stroke his cheek briefly, until he pulled away. “We should really talk more often. Do some catching up -- after you check this new lead.” Her lips stretched wider. “Come have dinner with me. Tomorrow. At the Continental.”

Magnus’ face was severe when he looked at her. “And what makes you think I’ll forget about all this for the sake of dinner? By the way, you’re talking to a married man.”

“I’m talking to an old friend.”

Magnus filled their silence with his frown, although he didn’t move away from Alice’s closeness. There was no need, she was, as she said, an old friend. And he’s long since moved on from them…

“Why are you doing this?” he asked. “You’re not police. You were never police.”

“How can you tell?”

“Because you’re remorseless,” Magnus said. “Thoughtless. You play with everyone and you revel in your own genius. And yet there’s nothing in it for you.”

“Dinner.”

“And besides, you don’t look like one,” he went on. “You’re fit. You get eight hours of sleep everyday, three square meals and all the time in the world to look for designer shoes. And you hardly could have come all the way here from England just to help me with this case.”

Alice laughed through her smile again, tracing the outline of Magnus’ jaw with a finger. “Well, why not?”

“What for?”

“Isn’t that the question?” Alice said. “Maybe I’m just turned on by married police officers.”

Magnus would have wanted to snarl but it just came out in a breath as he looked away.

“Come have dinner with me and I might just tell you,” she said. “Tomorrow? At seven. For old time’s sake.”

Now there was an invitation he was hard-pressed to shoot down: answers. It seemed as if since he became a police officer, that was all he ever thought about and looked for: answers. Then again, it was his job -- it was his oath. And this, those answers, his questions...they were his life.

It was as if Magnus couldn’t look her in the eyes when he conceded, because he looked down to his desk before he nodded.

⋆⋆⋆

“So what happened in Little Stempington?”

Dinner had finished and so had coffee where they talked about anything from politics to climate change to astronomy to the uniforms of the Swedish Police. After that, Alice invited Magnus to some cognac and led him to her room. He was sat in her couch now, a glass at hand, while she placed herself on her coffee table, her legs crossed, wearing golden jewelry, a black full-sleeved dress that bared her legs from the knees down up to her red stilettos.

She smiled to him. “Is that the right question to ask?”

“I thought long and hard about it.”

“Did your wife notice?”

“She’s used to it.”

Alice pursed her lips. “Careful you don’t push it.”

“Little Stempington is a dead town,” Magnus said, anyway, taking hold of the conversation before it got derailed again. “Nothing goes on in it, everyone’s just… breathing for the sake of it. Because it’s an involuntary movement. I went there exactly because I thought the peace and calm would do me well. I wanted a change from the poverty, the harshness.” He shifted in the couch to get more comfortable. “You never saw anything beyond Little Stempington. Nothing but aqua aerobics and botox to look forward to.”

“You remember even that?” She smiled.

“Did you lose your mind in that place?” Magnus asked. “Too quiet, too sleepy… too dull, too dead? You tried to be an actress to make things a little more exciting. You played with people, you played with me because no one else would recognise your brilliance otherwise. But somehow, that wasn’t all enough for you.”

“When you left, I knew it was time,” Alice said, matching even temper for even temper, raising her glass to sip. “I lost the one man who made me feel good about myself.”

“Then why did you drop the baby?”

“The baby would have tied me to Little Stempington. I was really happy when I learned I was pregnant but it slowly, slowly ate at me from the inside.” She smiled again. “Like a parasite. Like fetii should be exactly: parasites.”

“So you dropped the baby for selfish reasons.”

“Oh no,” Alice raised her brows, “Not selfish. I’m not delusional… Magnus. I know I’ll be a bad mother. I hate my own, I hated my life in that town. I couldn’t bear the idea of raising her there, putting her through everything I was going through. And what if she learns to love it? That would be just as bad.”

“I don’t see why,” Magnus asked, confusion in his brows.

“We never saw eye to eye,” Alice went on. “But you wanted to know why I dropped the baby. And that was it. I was getting depressed, desperate… and when I cried, it was because it was painful, it was because she was mine… but I was also happy. Relieved.”

“You killed a life.”

“Arguably, she wasn’t human yet,” Alice said with her positivity. “And you could also say that I actually saved a life.” She pouted again.

Magnus shook his head, looking down to his drink. “You ripped her away from any chance she had to life. You had no right,” he said after a pause and downed his cognac. “You have no right to kill anyone.”

“Oh, are we talking about that now?” That smile again. “Do you want to know how I came up with it?”

“I can’t believe I’m saying this,” Magnus sighed amidst the drop of bitter poison filling his chest, set his glass aside to rub his face with his hands. “But you are a criminal!”

“Are you going to arrest me, Officer?”

“Well, I can’t, can I?” And that was the worst part, what made his nerves shake and twist. Magnus sounded weary, scratching his head, ill at ease, even confused. “It’s not my business, and you haven’t done anything wrong by the Swedish law. But I can’t believe I’m talking to you like this!”

“Is it against your moral principles? You know Inspector, the world… isn’t as black and white as you would like it to be.”

“That doesn’t give you any right to run free!” Magnus exclaimed, his voice booming in the quiet room. “You _killed_ a _life_.”

“Oh, I’ve done more than that.”

“I can’t take your pride,” Magnus said, shaking his head. “It disgusts me.” It was like bile burning a path from his guts to his heart. That, and his lack of action, lack of options. He felt helpless and it made him feel angry.

Alice leaned forward to put a hand on his cheek again but he swatted it away. “You are such a good man, Magnus. What would the world do without you?”

Magnus snorted in response.

Alice straightened up. “You’re welcome for the tip-off, by the way. I see the case has rolled forward.”

They never talked about the case. When she tried, he refused. “We could have gotten there without your help,” he said, stubbornly.

“When? When Ahlstrom is dead?”

“Jewel, no one’s applauding you anymore!” Magnus burst suddenly. “The show is done, the crowds have left! We _didn’t need_ you. I don’t know why you’re doing this, I don’t know what the _hell_ is going on in that head of yours but if this is how it works with your damned married policeman, don’t assume that you can play us the same way--”

Her slap surprised him. It wasn’t rough but there was a sting and it burned briefly. Magnus’ hand hovered to his cheek. Half-stunned, he looked at Alice.

She put her hand down, squared her shoulders. “Oops,” she whispered, smiling if shakily.

His hand returned to his lap, and his eyes away from Alice, thoughts passing behind them, on the curl of his brows. At the tip of his tongue was an apology, ready to spring out for an old friend but pride and the present refused it. It tasted bitter, strong at the back of his throat. He should never apologize to a criminal, he would never. That was against everything he fought for, everything that brought him to Ystad.

In his silence, she tugged on the hem of her skirt and smoothed it out.

“Go back to your married policeman,” he whispered.

The smile flickered out of Alice’s face, and she looked instead with round eyes, flat lips.

Magnus looked at her to see this. “I’m sorry, Jewel,” he said. “Things have changed. In the past, we used to play with each other. But you can’t bring that back now.”

“I just wanted to see you.”

“I don’t think you can stop yourself there,” he said to her frown. “I’ve seen how you think. It’s addictive. You’ll never be able to stop yourself and I can’t deal with that. Ahlstrom was a close brush but we know what happens with perversion.” He refused to recognize that twitch on Alice’s face. “I play a different game now, and so do you. We’ve chosen our sides.”

“You just don’t want to arrest me,” Alice said. “And you can’t.”

“We don’t want to find out for sure.”

Those words were like burning coal, searing Alice to her feet, Magnus responding in a slower manner, rising with a ceremonious grunt. “You think you’re so smart,” she said. “Where will you be without me?”

“At home,” Magnus replied. “With my wife. In our bed. Where I’m meant to be.” He didn’t see it but he could feel the way she tightened her grip around her glass, shook, squeezed it hard. “Thanks for dinner. Goodnight.”

He saw himself out, and didn’t hear the glass shatter against the door.

⋆⋆⋆

They never saw each other again.

A week later, the racing conclusion of Ahlstrom’s case brought Magnus to an unfinished building construction close to the town’s ferry port. He parked his car a block away from it and loaded his gun as he walked towards it. “I’m in location,” he said to the bluetooth piece hooked to his ear, blinking blue. “I’m going in.”

His feet were silent as he stepped into the vacant structure, keeping his hands around his sidearm as he inspected the first floor, then moved on to the next. His form was tensed although not stiff, he kept his eyes sensitive to any movement, flicker of the light, his ear itching for a sound beside his bated breath.

It was three floors later that he finally picked something up and it led him to the shape of a man with his back turned, facing the other stairwell Magnus did not take. The officer made sure he had enough ground for running before he called the man’s attention, his voice bouncing in the colorless concrete. “This is the police. Put your hands in the air where I can see them.”

He walked carefully within a straight line of the man who turned awkwardly towards him with shuffling steps. Magnus’ heart sank when it became apparent that he’d found himself a hostage and now he had a life to take care of. But it plummeted to the pits of his stomach, a cold brush racing up his arms, when he saw that it was Alice.

She had a gun to her head, a graze on her cheek, bruising, an arm around her collar. She wore her red hair bound tight, a black jacket, black trousers, black boots, black gloves, black everything. And the way she moved was stilted, tensed not exactly in the way that Magnus was.

Alice offered a shaky smile. “Oops,” she said to him.

Magnus let out a breath, his hands shifting around his gun as his mind worked wildly for a plan. He did a quick inspection of the pair before him just as the assailant made his demand.

“Put down your gun,” he said with rattled nerves, “Or I’ll shoot her.”

“You’re bleeding,” Magnus said, continuing the conversation -- if it could even be called that -- in Swedish, eyes on the damp patch on his shirt at the side, the tangy smell in the air now finally making sense to him. He didn’t know exactly how Alice did it but he imagined she might have found a sharp object somehow and tried to defend herself. Blood was difficult to see in black. “Let’s stop this. We need to take you to the hospital.”

“I won’t. Put down your weapon!”

“Okay, okay! Here,” Magnus slowly folded his knees, keeping his eyes on the other gunner while he placed his own gun carefully on the floor. “We can talk about this,” he said, rising slowly, hands up. “No one else has to get hurt.”

“Kick it here!”

Magnus obliged, sending the gun spinning towards the pair until the man’s boot stopped it. “Look at me,” he said, “and tell me what you’re feeling.”

Confusion was in the man’s eyes, sweat glistening on his face as his body shook. Magnus was counting the signs and Alice remained quiet and still, her face open and unreadable all at once. “Stop distracting me,” he said, half-hysterical. “Keep quiet!”

“I can stand here all day even with my hands up, and so can she.” Magnus nodded towards his hostaged friend. “But you, you’re wounded. How much longer do you have until you start feeling dizzy from bloodloss?”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I’m a police officer,” Magnus proceeded calmly. “I know what fatal wounds look like, I see what they do.” He felt his phone vibrating in his pocket but ignored the itch to answer it. “That person you’re holding is Dr. Alice Morgan. Let her go, she’ll dress your wound.”

“You just want to arrest me.”

“I just want to take you to the hospital,” Magnus said. He kept his eyes on the criminal, felt every membrane of his sight stretch themselves out for the man that he’d missed the flicker of a smile on Alice’s face. “Please, I didn’t come here to collect a dead body.”

“I’m not dying,” he shook his head almost wildly, “But she is if you don’t step back!”

“Take it easy!” Panic was slowly rising to Magnus’ voice, he was losing time and ideas faster than he’d hoped for. “I’m stepping back,” he said but he looked at Alice first for two seconds.

Alice nodded.

Then he started moving, slowly, one foot at a time, making sure to slide it against the concrete so that the echo decorated his movement, told the assailant that he was doing as he was instructed. He moved carefully lest he tripped on a pebble, kicked them away save for one the size of his thumb which he dragged with him next to a post. “Is this far enough?” he asked, just when he kicked the chunk of cement aside.

“Okay. Now turn, and go back the way you came from. Down there,” he said to the nodding Magnus who made a show of stepping sideways, all the while following him with minced steps. “Don’t stop until I tell you to--”

The debris smacking lightly against a distant wall echoed impressively throughout the empty space. The desired effect had been attained: the man pointed his gun towards the wall, yelled and fired a loud shot. Alice took this chance to smash her closest fist against the man’s wound, fighting out of his grip as he yelped and faltered while she stole Magnus’ gun from under his foot and kicked it to the running police officer.

Magnus scraped its spinning form off the floor and aimed quickly. “Go!!” came his echoing yell, forgetting his English as Alice ran to an open side and he fired his gun, watched the shot burst on the man’s leg, his figure crash onto the dusty cement with a wail.

That was the only time he allowed himself to breathe, exhaling carefully as blood spurted from the assailant’s new wound, the man writhing and groaning in absolute agony. In his peripheral vision, he saw Alice’s black boots make for the man’s gun which she picked up and aimed at his head. “Don’t,” Magnus said, holding up a hand to the woman although he kept his eyes and gun on the injured suspect. “No one has to die here.”

He missed it again amidst the assailant’s crying, Alice’s smile.

⋆⋆⋆

The ambulance arrived not long after along with two police cars. Alice was escorted to one of them, while Magnus stayed to supervise the investigation and the medical team’s work on the assailant, hands on his sides, pacing. It was only when the weeping man had been loaded on a stretcher that he left the scene for the forensics and followed the paramedics out of the building.

He left them to carry the suspect into the ambulance while he made his way to the police car where sat Alice with a gray blanket wrapped around her form on the boot. The sea wind was blowing against them, ruining the woman’s hairdo but she paid it no mind.

Magnus’ eyes were squinted at Alice when he asked her, “Are you hurt?” This time in English, finally.

Alice looked at him and shook her head, smiled.

“What were you doing in that place?”

“What does a young lady do when her only fan tells her to go away?” Alice said. “She proves him wrong.”

“You nearly got yourself killed,” Magnus said. “This is why you should never do my work, it’s dangerous! What if I didn’t get a tip-off that the suspect was here?”

“Who do you think gave you that tip-off? How many dog walkers do you think would be out and about in the afternoon?” Alice’s smile stretched. “I’m not a stupid little girl anymore. Of course I’d phone the police.”

Magnus exhaled through his nose, dipped his head for a break. But when he looked at Alice again, the features that were etched on his face were ones of resignation… and perhaps even friendship. He would no longer fight this woman, he was done. There was nothing he could do, not with someone like that. But that didn’t mean he could let her go on with her game. “Go home, Alice,” Magnus said. “This place isn’t for you, and you can’t make it. I don’t know where you go back to. Your married policeman or someone else…” He shook his head. “But there’s nothing here for you.” For the first time since they’d met again, he raised a hand to touch her, placed it on her shoulder like he would a good friend. “It’s time to be Alice Morgan.”

The smile on her face was quiet, comfortable. She parted it slightly when she raised a hand to hold Magnus by the cheek and press a kiss against the corner of his lips -- not passionately at all but long.

She pulled away with the smile back in its throne, then pressed a hand on Magnus’ lips before he spoke again. “For old time’s sake. Bill Hazledine.” That smile turned to a grin, her nose crinkling. “Thanks again for saving my life.”

“I’m just doing my job,” Magnus said. When a policewoman arrived, inviting Alice into the car, he stepped back and allowed his colleague to take his old friend to the back seat. He held the door for them and closed it.

Alice looked at him through the window and twiddled her fingers goodbye as her escort slipped into the driver’s seat and started the engine. Magnus lifted a hand to wave back to her.

And then stood back to watch the car drive out of the lot. Before it even became a speck in the distance, his phone vibrated again, and he answered the call with a button on his earpiece. “Martinsson. Yup,” he said in the language he shared with his colleagues… then turned back to the building and started walking. “Yup, I’m on my way.”


End file.
